The Gift Exchange
by Wendish
Summary: A whole lot of banter as the Jeffersonian / FBI crew gather for no reason in particular at year's end. Pretty sure Sweets and Hank are chuckling at this one. (Didya know Aubrey, Oliver and Jessica are not on the FF character list? No love for a 10 y/o show!)


_Created December 2014_ \- I don't own these characters or the words made famous by the TV show, Bones. Love them anyway. All the rest that follows is my feeble attempt to keep time in between broadcasts; Razztaztic, Threesquares, and Covalent Bond postings.

A/N: 12/7/2014 - Trying to update Collide, but I had the need to fit one sentence into a fic and Eugene's Instagram video of Pej being fed a tray of cookies set the tone. This is not a traditional holiday story at all. Just a gathering. It actually feels a little like a rejected Old Navy commercial, plus, you know, me causing trouble :). You be the judge!

T-rated too! Can you stand it?

* * *

Arastoo handed his girlfriend a glass of wine, as he sipped his ginger ale. "This place is really, nice right?"

"Yeah, I kind of miss the old place. All that hard work that we put into it…gone in a half an hour. Probably looked a lot like we found it."

"What do you mean 'hard work?'" Andie inquired.

Wendell clarified. "Booth had bought them a house in Maryland. Nice neighborhood, but the previous owners had some trouble with the law at the home. Place was a war zone, totally gutted."

"Hmmph. Odd foreshadowing." Oliver sneered.

Clark shook his head. Wendell rolled his eyes and continued. "Anyway, Booth asked for my help to reconstruct the place. It was gorgeous. A more traditional design than what this place is."

"Definitely more her than him." Oliver sniffed.

"Hold on. I may have pictures on my phone." Wendell and Andie busied themselves with searching on Wendell's smartphone.

Hodgins stroked through Angela's hair as they lounged together on the chaise. "Yeah, I do miss the old place. This place is nice and all, but I'm afraid to let Michael Vincent and Christine loose in here."

Angela chuckled. "Oh they're fine in here! It's remarkable how kid-friendly this place is…except for the windows of course. I put a squeegee in Bren and Booth's stockings. But you know who you can't let looses? Aubrey. He's a natural disaster."

With a full mouth of food, Aubrey protested. "Hey! Dats nub air!" from his mouth, several bits of bruschetta fell onto the area rug. "Oh. Shit."

"See what I mean?" Angela chuckled. "Face it kid. You're a human garbage disposal. The good news is that if you ever got lost, we'd find you in a minute…because you'd leave a trail of food."

"I think Aubrey's adorable." Jessica defended. She rose from the couch to grab a napkin from the buffet table. "A man with a healthy appetite is nothing to complain about." She explained as she dabbed at the side of Aubrey's mouth.

The naturally twitchy agent stilled, laughing nervously under Warren's soft touch. "Thanks Ms. Warren."

"It's Jessica." She replied predatorily. "You, uh…have a little bit of food on your tie. We should work on that where there's better lighting."

"Um, better. Lighting?" he gulped.

"Come on." She encouraged, pulling him by the tie towards the bathroom.

"I think that we may have lost our house guest for the evening." Jack whispered, not-so-quietly into Angela's hair.

"Why? What's happening?" Oliver inquired.

"Really, Arastoo? Another cookie?" Clark inquired. "Haven't seen you at the gym for two weeks now. You sure about that."

Wendell chuckled before returning his attention back to his lady.

"Wow! The house is beautiful! I suppose that it doesn't surprise me that you're good with your hands, Mr. Bray." Andie teased, leaning into her beaming boyfriend for a more-than-brief kiss. "This place is amazing Wendell. But if you guys put so much hard work into it, why move?"

Wendell shifted, looking around at his colleagues.

"Uh, it's a long story." Arastoo piped up. "Not very festive."

Andie shook her head in understanding, about to follow up on his comment, when Max burst through the door.

"Okay people, let's make some room! The tree is here!"

Universally, glasses of wine were set down as the gathered surrounded the bustle of Max barking instructions to Finn and Rodolfo about tree placement.

"Finn, I get, but Max took Dr. Fuentes with him?" Cam murmured to Angela.

"Yeah. Well apparently Max wanted to remind Rodolfo that Booth is not the only man in Bren's life capable of murder." Angela chuckled.

"I love Max! You know for an older man, he still has it." Cam observed, out of earshot of Arastoo. "Don't tell Dr. Brennan I said that."

"Said what?" Inquired a Brennan, seemingly appearing from nowhere. Cam and Angela exchanged glances in review of their friend's appearance: eyes dark, cheeks flush, lips swollen and dress partially zipped. Discreetly, Angela completed her friend's redress as Brennan took in the situation before her. Max was instructing her interns to place the tree directly in front of the patio entrance.

"Daaaaaaaaaad! This is a fire hazard! It is not where I want the tree…" Brennan powered through her crowd of guests to bicker with her father.

The amazed team watched as the fearless Dr. Temperance Brennan devolved into teenage Tempe as she fought the tree battle with Max.

A voice mumbled quietly behind Cam an!d Angela. "I agree with Max. Not that he'll win." Both turned to find a bemused Seeley Booth taking in the scene. Uncharacteristically, his hair was mussed and his lips, chin, neck and shirt collar were smeared with red lipstick.

"Seriously?" Angela snarked. "You couldn't pass a mirror?"

"This is more of a window home than a mirror home... Why? Am I too good looking tonight, ladies?"Booth teased, unable to restrain a cheshire grin.

Cam smacked him on his arm. "You're hosting a party! You two couldn't stay off each other for a few hours?"

"Well, Jared and Padme are coming tonight. Daisy and the baby are staying here, too! " He defended weakly. "We, uh…took advantage of the time we could."

"Come on, Loverboy! We need to make you presentable!" Both women slipped their hands around Booth's arms, dragging him backwards toward his bedroom.

"Wait! We've got a bathroom right over…"

"It's occupied." The women said in unison.

"Uh. Okay." Booth acquiesced. Teasing his friends, he commented. "Don't tell Bones, but I've had fantasies that start like this."

Cam swatted Booth again. Angela added. "Me too, Studly. Me too!"

Watching the agent being dragged away by his boss and his business partner's wife, Finn leaned into Hodgins. "Uh, Thurston, aren't you a little concerned about that?"

Hodgins laughed. "Opie, I'm a very happily married man, and so is Booth. I've just learned to just go with it. Plus, Dr. B can snap both of those girls in two…"

Finn laughed, nodding in impressed admiration at Hodgins, his broad grin being interrupted shortly at the sight of Michelle's entrance. He smiled stiffly, as she shyly approached.

"Hey."

"Hey Finn." She smiled. "Merry Christmas. It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too. Merry Christmas. You look beautiful."

"Finn…"

"I'm sorry, Michelle, but you do. Nothing about how we feel about each other can change that…"

Hodgins deftly excused himself from the awkward exchange, stealing away to Arastoo, Clark and Oliver to sort through the boxes of Christmas decorations.

Oliver was waiting for Hodgins. "So that over there?"

"What about it?"

"Are they-?"

"No."

"But they used to-"

"And Finn still wants to-"

"You got it."

"Okay. Caught up on that."

Max chuckled as he patted Arastoo on the back. "So do you get demerits for being in the presence of a Christmas tree?"

Out of respect for his host (and a little fear of Max), Arastoo hesitated before responding.

"Dad!" Brennan cut in. "I will send you home."

"What? It was just a joke! How often to do I get speak with a Muslim at Christmas time?"

"It is my preference that religion not be discussed tonight."

"Honey." Angela interrupted, having returned to the tree staging area. "It's a **Christmas** party."

"No." Booth interjected, adjusting the sleeves on his replaced dress shirt. "This is a gathering of friends and family during the holiday season. Christmas is December 25th. "

Brennan grinned broadly at her husband. He had changed from the white shirt he was just in, into a French blue shirt. From the corner of her eye, she caught Angela mouthing "you're welcome" to her. She snickered and offered a horribly awkward wink back to her best friend.

"So…it's a constant series of compromises with you two, then huh?" Oliver inquired.

Barreling out of the kitchen area, Caroline fussed. "Okay people. I seemed to have lost my assistant to a real life episode of 'My So Called Life.'" She frowned in the direction of Michelle and Finn, who had moved toward the hallway to talk. "I've got a roast that needs basting, greens that need stirring, and five pies that need filling. Who's with me?"

Wendell and Andie volunteered, and headed toward the kitchen.

"Did I hear you say pies Ms. Juilan?" Piped up Aubrey, rushing toward the kitchen, tucking his shirt back into his trousers.

A grinning Jessica returned to the group. "So what did I miss?"

"Well, when you're done fist-bumping Angela over there, it's time to decorate the_ holiday _tree." Max teased, making sure his daughter noted his emphasis on the word "holiday". "Hey, where's my granddaughter?"

"She and Michael Vincent are with Daisy and the baby in the nursery." Hodgins shared.

"I'll go get them." Arastoo offered, happy to escape.

"Why do they have a nursery?" Rodolfo asked Oliver. Oliver shrugged.

Thankfully, the holiday decorations that were in storage and had not been affected by the incident, except for an upgrade from Booth's ratty old cardboard boxes to storage tubs. Unfortunately, there were so many tubs – and none of them translucent, it would take the army of people assembled to sort through them. And so, they began.

"Wow!" Rodolfo exclaimed. "This tub is so strong, I think it could have carried me from Cuba to Maine! What is in this?"

Booth examined the handwriting on the tub label. "Ummm. I think they're outdoor lights. Just open it. Yup. See. Outdoor lights. You can move those to the patio."

"Are these outdoor lights, too? I can't tell." Jessica inquired as she opened her tub."

_Can't tell the difference between indoor and outdoor lights? _

Booth eyed her incredulously before he recalled that Jessica was raised in in a situation wackier than all of them. "Nope. Indoor. See, they're smaller than what Fuentes had. Just read the label."

"That's the problem." Max fussed. "The handwriting's horrible. And why did you get opaque tubs, Tempe? Jesus, you store bones in translucent tubs, but **_holiday_ **items must stored in super secret tubs?"

The doorbell rang.

Booth scratched his cheek as he assessed how to get from among all the tubs and people to the front door. "That's probably Jared, Padme, and the baby."

Feeling a family squabble about to erupt, Clark offered to get it.

Brennan frowned at her father. Walking over to her husband, she too had difficulty discerning the handwriting on the labels. "I'm having a hard time reading what each of these boxes says." She confessed.

"Well, whose handwriting is it?" Oliver inquired.

"It's Lance's." Daisy chimed in, entering the room with Baby Seeley.

* * *

The tree was trimmed, the meal was consumed and the party had split off into three groups: the Baby Cooers, the Kitchen Crew and the Cigar Smokers.

Caroline and Arastoo led the baby cooing charge as they fawned over Baby Seeley and Baby Henry with the kids, the mothers and Andie. Almost immediately upon meeting, Arastoo had fallen in love with Little Henry and had yet to put him down.

Gulping down her fourth glass of wine as she watched, Cam inquired to no person in particular in the kitchen, "Should I be worried about what I'm seeing here? Arastoo is really into that baby."

Brennan peaked over her shoulder. "Well, I should think not. At your age, the likelihood of you becoming pregnant ranges from one to less than twelve percent over a year's worth of cycles. And, if you did get pregnant, your miscarriage risk is fifty-"

Cam snapped toward her friend "Just stop. Just stop right there."

Brennan was unable to stop herself. "You could get a surrogate, or adopt…Michelle's turned out quite well."

"Thanks Dr. Brennan." Michelle added. "Cam. A surrogate would be a great option. You two would have amazingly beautiful babies…"

While Cam argued with her daughter, Jessica handed a pie plate to Rodolfo before turning to Brennan. "Speaking of babies, Dr. Brennan. Did you set it up that nursery for your holiday visitors or…"

Brennan was right. The tree belonged in the corner, out of the way of the patio, enabling easy entrance and egress for the friends enjoying a box of cigars that Pops had given to Jared before he passed.

Andie popped her head out into the smoke. "Wendell, I'm making a plate for you to bring home. Did you want apple pie, sweet potato or both?"

Wendell smiled. "I'm fine with whatever you choose."

Andie giggled as Wendell was showered with 'awws', 'woos' and kissing noises from his friends. "Then a surprise it will be." She closed the sliding glass door and walked toward the kitchen.

As she did, the whole lot of cigar smokers – including Angela – leaned over to watch Andie – and her form fitting red dress – walk away. Wendell's ears almost matched the dress when he realized the amount of admiration that his girlfriend was garnering.

"Damn, Wendell." Angela exclaimed. "She's got one smoking little body on her."

Clark sighed, shaking his head. "Miss Montenegro. You used very similar terminology to describe me once. It made me very uncomfortable." Turning to Wendell, "But she's right man, your girl is tight."

"Dangerous curves on her." Max added.

Jared showed his agreement by clinking his tumbler of (alcohol-free) eggnog with Max's bourbon. "Cheers, friend. You're a lucky guy."

Wendell grinned, though he was quick to defend his lady. "She's a good person, guys. Smart and funny. And an excellent nurse."

"That's for damn sure. One dropped pen on the floor and I bet your blood just boiled those cancer cells straight away." Booth teased. "Ow!" he hissed, having received a punch on the arm from Max. "I love your daughter. Calm down! Geez! I can't have eyes?"

Oliver snatched the cheddar crisps from an orange-fingered Aubrey. "You do realize that you're sublimating your attraction to Dr. Saroyan, right?"

"Huh?" Finn asked.

Oliver chomped on the crisps loudly. "Cam. Dr. Saroyan? Wendell's attracted to her. No biggie. We all are. We'd be fools not to be."

Snatching the crisps back from Oliver. Aubrey eyed Oliver suspiciously. "Dude, I'll have to arrest you if I find out that you've been smoking weed, and not these cigars."

Angela – who had become almost as an effective Oliver-whisperer than was her husband – interjected. "Oliver, you do realize that you're speaking out loud, right?"

"Of course! Look at the evidence! We all want Cam, or some variation of her! Arastoo is dating her, Finn's trying to get back into her daughter's – "

"Watch it!" Booth and Max threatened simultaneously.

"…life." He added, clueless of the aggressive tone. "Ah, um. Wendell's dating a version of her. C'mon guys! Beautiful African American woman? Smart, successful? In medicine, deals with death on a daily basis? Clark – you just broke up with your version of Cam…"

"That's not true!" Clark protested. "She was a PhD, no medicine whatsoever." He mumbled.

"Max obviously gets a twinkle in his eye around her."

"I do?"

"You do." Booth agreed.

"You and Cam were on-again, off-again for almost a decade." Jared reminded his brother.

All eyes turned to Booth, who realized that Aubrey, and none of the interns were aware of their relationship.

...Or Max.

"Strange that you never mentioned that to me, Booth. Does Tempe know?"

Booth shifted as his father-in-law began to corner him on the railing.

"Of course she knows!" snapped Angela, reaching behind her to pull Max away from Booth. "Calm down!" she ordered. She smoothed her dress, before picking up her cigar again. "Wow, Hodgie! You're the only one apparently who hasn't fallen under Cam's spell." She grinned at her husband proudly. Until she realized that he wasn't smiling back.

Hodgins blushed as his wife. "Well, we had a moment. Once. Years ago."

Angela's jaw dropped.

"It was when you were dating Wendell!" He`protested.

Oliver chuckled. "You dated Wendell? Oh this is rich!"

Hodgins' eyes pleaded with his wife. "It was late. We were in the lab. It was only a kiss." That's all. "Nothing ever came of it. No one even knew."

"I knew." Booth snickered. "I saw the whole thing from the lounge."

Angela snapped her head to Booth. "And you never told me?"

"I told Bones! She could have told you! Or Cam! She told you when she slept with your other husband!"

Oliver choked on his stogie. "What?!"

"Here we go again." Clark sighed.

"So let me get this incestuous knot straight." Max teased. "Oliver's the only one of you who hasn't had the tangible hots for another one of you?"

The group looked around in shocked surprise. Amidst the puffs of smoke (and Aubrey's munching), there was not an innocent among them.

"Guilty." Jared said winking at his brother. The interns eyed Jared, wondering which of the Ladies of the Lab he spoke of. But Clark knew.

Clark cleared his throat, feeling smug. "Well, I guess I stand above everyone on the moral high ground."

Max scoffed. "Quiet kid, Tall Pig Pen here says you dated a Cam Clone. And don't think I don't see how you look at my daughter."

Booth straightened. "Why? How does he look at Bones?"

Wendell patted Clark on the shoulder, offering him assurance that Booth probably wouldn't kill him. Probably.

'I'm in the tangible pool too. I hooked up with Daisy. It was a disaster." Oliver shared nonchalantly.

"My god, we _are _incestuous aren't we?" laughed Angela.

"No, there's still Aubrey! He's unsullied…" Booth pointed out.

Aubrey blushed while the patio erupted in laughter. "Um sorry, Boss. I uh, kind of have been initiated into the gang, here…"

Booth leaned into Hodgins for an explanation. "Oh! Tonight! In my house?"

"Boss, I'm sorry." Aubrey offered sheepishly, feeling very much the new guy.

Booth drew his hand over his face, recalling a case from years back. "I get it kid. We're a good looking bunch. In close proximity. We stimulate each other." He was about to puff, but first threatened (punctuating each word with his cigar) "but next time, keep it out of my house. And stay away from my wife!"

"Don't tell us!" Wendell protested. "Tell Fuentes."

Instinctively, Booth's eyes shot toward the kitchen. He was relieved to find Fuentes' charm and attention focused on Caroline, who was spoon feeding him apple pie. Brennan had joined the group of Baby Cooers. He lost himself momentarily in the sight of Brennan and Christine curled up on the couch holding Little Baby Seeley. Dryly, he swallowed as his heart thundered.

Finn concluded "I suppose the only angel among us is Fisher."

"This is the weirdest holiday party I have ever been to." Clark mumbled, causing Hodgins to giggle uncontrollably.

Aubrey checked in the bag, disbelieving that it was empty. "Who's Fisher?"

* * *

A/N2: All of this banter stems from wanting to add the last line of this fic to a story. So there you go.

A/N3: How many haters hate that there's barely any B&amp;B in this? Ain't I a stinker?

A/N4: Padme and Jared's little one, Henry Booth is a creation of mine from Prehistoric Sea Creatures. If you want a more traditional holiday story. Go read that.

Wishing all colors and creeds a safe and happy holiday season, and year's end. Let's do better people. As a species, we should have figured this shit out by now!


End file.
